My Perfect Enemy
by SpeakingThroughWrittenWords
Summary: It was on that day everything changed. What we do is the same, but it was not a game before, no matter what anyone says. Before it was everything I could do to be a child and a protector. Then... He came for me. I thought I had him. For 99luftbalons


**My Perfect Enemy**

_We are enemies. That is that. It would be cruel and unfair to suggest otherwise. We show nothing but unadulterated loathing to each other. There is not a point of the day in which one of us is not plotting against the other. There is not a night in which I do not spend hours studying him and not my homework. It has been the same since our Hi-skool days and has been the same ever since entered my life._

_That should be that. College though, had made things a bit more difficult. A bit more interesting._

_Zim had learned more then I could have believed possible. It was still him, but he put something aside to torment me more with his words now then anything else. I hate to say that he was succeeding. But that was the only way he was._

_I had the perfect roommate. We understood each other perfectly and did not bother one another. I was a good student without trying. He surpassed me and studied every second he wished. In fact, he spent more time in the library then in our dorm room. It was a good thing too, he did not have to be swept up in my battle._

_Zim had the perfect roommate... or at least, that is what I believed. He was a very popular student that spent a lot of time going to parties and hanging out with friends. Because of this, Zim could not do anything to him for fear of being discovered. He had managed to transplant his base to the grounds and would not want his roommate to discover it. All I had to do was stay on the student's good side to have the advantage over Zim. Including everything, I would be ahead._

_Sadly, that is never how fate would have it..._

Dib's eyes snapped open, book falling on the ground. The noise that made him come to was a group of students, all discussing how had finally gotten their work done so they were free for the weekend. He scowled, picking up his bio-chemistry book. He never got over how people that could be intelligent and forfeited pleasure for knowledge most of the year could suddenly put aside their hard earned achievements for a single day. He wouldn't have minded so much if they didn't act like Hi-skoolers every time it came around. Every year that he thought he was escaping it...

The weekend had been dreaded, but that had never stopped a day before. He sighed and headed for his dorm room.

_I envied them then. It never seemed to bother me any other day of the year. They each had someone special, or someone they believed that loved them truly. I never had such fantasies. Well, I did... and do, but I knew better than to let them interfere with my aspirations and goals in life. The one time I did I regretted._

_Paranormal drove me to measures no one else could stand up to. It made me forget about those attractions and lusts of that nature... sometimes. What would any of that matter if the world was destroyed? I couldn't afford these distractions until the end. I always had to be vigilant and watch him constantly. I had to do this for everyone else. So they could have their special someone._

_It used to be every Valentine's Day I would be reminded of the attachment I never had. I would be reminded that no one loved me._

_All I had was one commitment._

"What are you doing here Zim?" Dib sighed, shutting his room door behind him. "You didn't bother Ethan did you?"

Zim sat on his bed, swinging his legs with his feet just skimming the ground. "No, the Dib's filthy roommate isn't here. Spending another night in that horrible hyuman-infested information center, hmm?"

"He has a date," Dib responded.

Zim rose an eye in feigned questioning. "Does the Dib have a _date?_"

Dib dropped his bag on the ground by his desk. "Out Zim." A hand came up gesturing towards the door.

"Not quite yet," the alien drawled, leaning back on the bed and reaching for Dib's books. Dib put a foot forward and slid the pile away from the aliens reach, toppling the entire pile over. "You don't want me to leave yet," Zim purred coyly. Dib glared at him. Only Zim could manage to be coy and evil at the same time.

Dib rubbed the bridge of his nose while thinking of a good enough retort.

"Actually Zim, I want you to drop dead. If you think you can do that without leaving the room, go on ahead."

_He saw me as no one else did. In fact, the words 'he saw me' was it. I could have been invisible and it wouldn't have made that much of a difference to everyone else. It was on Valentine's that it struck me hard. It is as if the entire world has to remind me of everything that I have done my best to care less about. And as much as it would have been enough just with my own mind and body torturing me over the fact I had given it all up until Zim was captured, _he_ had to find out. He had to remind me. He took Valentines as a time to personally use this knowledge against me. Until the Valentines before. And I hated him for it. I shall always hate him for it._

Zim frowned at him. "But Zim doesn't want to drop dead!" he paused, seeming to think over some previous statement. "But it's the _weekend_," he taunted, face nearing Dib's ear. Dib scowled and shoved Zim off of his bed. Zim squeaked as he hit the ground, bringing a satisfied smirk to Dib's face.

"Don't be a twit," Dib smoothed out his sheets, making a mental note to wash them all out thoroughly with bleach before getting under them again. "Who the hell has actual time for a date?"

"Someone who has finished all of their assignments!" Zim hissed back, throwing a book at him. Dib caught it with a single hand, ignoring the bruise that felt like it might form on his palm.

"So you have a date?" Dib questioned, amused by the thought. No one could stand Zim's presence, let alone Zim could barely stand them. The thought of Zim going out on a date came to the end as a disaster and that always humored Dib. That made Zim's next words surprising to him.

"I always have a date Dib!" Zim snapped at him. "We see each other every day! And if I'm not there," he paused, seeming to think it over, "I am hunted down."

"That sounds more like our relationship," Dib mentioned cautiously, pulling his bag away from the alien who appeared to need something to do with his hands.

"It is!" Zim exclaimed, as if that were obvious. "You are Zim's date," he gave off a smirk of his own, "Always have been."

_He'll never understand Human culture, or just Human actions in general. He will take things too literally, or not as they were intended. He blames it on the English language, but that has never been an excuse for me. It makes sense for someone so foreign, but you might think someone else would notice. There isn't a day he makes a fatal mistake and if I were surrounded by anyone less then blind morons he would be discovered. He would be taken and they all would be forced to listen to me. But it has not happened yet. I can't wait for it to happen. It would break the trap a deliberately fell into._

"Are you going to leave?" Dib asked again, exasperated.

"Zim leaves because he wants too!" Zim warned Dib. He walked over to the door and opened it, but just stood there. He looked at Dib through his lensed eyes with his trademark 'I am always right!' look. "But I'll be back. Just wait for it. Zim knows the way to defeat you, as slow as it is."

Dib swept Zim outside by slamming the door shut. He was dreading the rest of the day with his soul.

But he could not help but long for it.

_It was exactly one year before I made the mistake to talk to him. We had that moot point every once in a while, when both of us would just sit there and wait for the mess we had both made to be cleared away by someone else. I made the mistake of telling him how I felt, about everything, about him. For a moment, I had forgotten that he would not care, would not understand what I was saying. I had surprised him, but from that day forward he had gone on surprising me. I told him I wished for one moment to be like anyone else and he did his best to make sure I was the exact opposite._

_It was on that day everything changed. What we do is the same, but it was not a game before, no matter what anyone else says. Before it was everything I could do to be a child and a protector. Then..._

_He came for me. I thought I had him._

College was not the grounds for war. Dib silently cursed in his mind as he scanned the scene. Couples were escaping the sacred learning ground to somewhere less conspicuous if both disappeared from view under a table. Dib knew it still was not empty enough for Zim to show himself. If there was one thing Zim knew it was that finally he stopped figuring his disguises were so 'invincible' that no one could see through them. He was cautious, as if expecting any day for the rest of the populace to notice his inhumanity. They never did though. And everything continued.

He still waited. The last thing Dib would do was let Zim get the drop on him. He was used to waiting. Zim would show up at any moment and he had to be ready. He had waited for much longer. The grounds were clear. Dib waited.

A branch creaked and Dib jumped, aiming a gun at nothing. Heart pounding in his chest, Dib turned every which way to look for him.

Lately it had been like this and Dib was reaching the end of his sanity. He couldn't be strung around like this. Anyway else but like this.

He locked the door tight when he got back. Paranoia had settled in, but he didn't care. He just didn't want Zim there, he didn't want Zim anywhere near him, he didn't want Zim to have the first move. He backed up, tripping over his bag and falling. A loud crash informed him he had broken the vase. For a minute, Dib stared at the sharp shards glinting in the moonlight and tossed them out the window. No one could go out there without him hearing them. The window was shut and Dib backed away to his bed and sat down. The room completely dark, he lied down still breathing harshly and tried to feel for the gun under his pillow. Grasping the handle, he sighed with relief.

"Happy Valentine's day Dib."

Dib rolled away from the grin, sitting up instantly. Forgetting gun instantly, he jumped at Zim, throwing him the floor, a clatter sounding from the pak's metal hitting the floor. The rolled around, managing to cut straight through the remains of the vase as so to make marks on both. He grabbed the alien's neck within his hands and pushed his body down on Zim's so to keep him from moving.

"There are things I'd rather be doing now Zim!" Dib spat at him, wanting the day to be over, even if it was only twelve o'clock. Anything to stop Zim's tormenting...

"I know!" Zim managed, struggling with nails digging deep into Dib's skin. "Zim sees these frustrations in you. Hyumans are pitiful creatures, but never you... not until now."

"You never make any sense," Dib growled. Zim's mechanical legs propelled them forward, crashing them both to the other wall, Zim now on top, pressing Dib's left arm and gun beneath him.

"Zim will win," Zim hissed quietly. "Your body will be void of all of your life-juices when I am done with you."

Dib wrapped one leg over both of Zim's to keep the Irken from pulling back. "Not unless I make you bleed first."

Zim's tongue came out, brushing Dib's cheek. "We'll both be bleeding before the end, Dib-stink... But your blood will be more."

Dib spat at him, burning his cheek. Zim snarled, but just as easily regained the composure which had finally become his best weapon against Dib. Zim then did the last thing that Dib expected, pressed his mouth against his and slid his tongue into Dib's mouth. Dib ripped his fingers into Zim's shoulders, making red marks, wanting to push him away. But he couldn't.

Zim finally pulled his mouth away, steam rising from his open mouth as he just stared at the other. "See? There is absolutely nothing you can do to defeat me. Nothing new that will surprise me, nothing different that I wouldn't know of."

Dib threw Zim away from him, able to pull the gun up and shoot at him. Zim easily dodged it as he glared back at Dib.

"What the hell was that Zim?" Dib exploded, wiping off his mouth, unable to ignore the peculiar taste that Zim had left on his tongue. Zim seemed about to respond, but then just stopped. Stopped moving, stopped talking. His head cocked as he returned Dib's look.

"I don't—It was to prove Zim's dominance over you, Dib-stink," he breathed out the remnants of the steam. "I've seen it done in your culture. Proved that I'm the one you will follow. Forever and without stopping." Zim nodded with contentment as if that satisfied him.

Dib shot another beam at him, only to singe the wall as Zim scowled.

"Zim thinks you understand it then?"

"Get out Zim!" Dib shouted at him, shooting to hit his face. Zim ran to the window and quickly opened it, falling out on the glass. After shouting garbled language he was gone. Dib cursed him in his mind and out loud. Cursed him for doing that to him. Cursed him for having to take more then his life.

_I do not care for his well-being. I would as soon kill him, but for fear that my guarded precious evidence might be damaged beyond repair someday. I truly think that, no matter what one could think of my actions. I have put everything I am into this. I loathe him beyond mere contempt for he has had to pull out more then I have. I hate that I haven't been destroyed, that I have just been built all over again. What is the definition of love? If so, what does everyone else celebrate on this day?_

The next day was just another Saturday. Dib readied himself for his normal routine. College, studying, and following Zim. Just as Sunday was Sunday and Monday was Monday.

Dib caught Zim's eye as they sat at their regular spaces across the classroom. The usual grin, the usual promise to have him caught. As if nothing had changed. Nothing really had.

_Commitment is an empty love. Passion is infatuation. Intimacy would require caring for the person, liking them, being able to tell them your deepest secrets and darkest fears. We lack that in our relationship. Anything between us would never be intimate like that. All we have, all we've ever had is fatuous. We are passionate. We are committed. We have always been like that, which is why it is the same. But we will never just like each other. Never have, never will. We will never be able to share these secrets._

_Zim does not feel love for me. Being an Irken does not allow him. He does have commitment. He will continue forever, because he can not be accused of giving up. He has passion. For everything he puts his mind to he has to complete thoroughly. Being Human only allows me to follow so much of that act. And until I defeat him, I will have to make do with this._

* * *

This is the first dark ZADR I have done, by request of 99luftbalons. It definitely is nothing like I have ever written before... more... something. Strange? I do not know.

Anyways, hope you like it 99luftbalons!_  
_


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